You say "obviously", but can't back it up with facts. Here's a fact, repeated for you a second time - that angle CONSISTENTLY got TNA their highest rated segments, and saw an overall increase in viewership of the program while it ran.

The IWC of course hated it, and yes, the acting was obviously hammy, but it drew in viewers. Hence why WWE cloned a huge proportion of it.

I'd ask you to produce some kind of evidence for these facts. The numbers I've seen for example point toward no real increase of viewership during the summer of 2012 when I believe this angle was running and it looks like they might even have been down year-on-year. And as I'm sure we've discussed previously it can be quite easy to goose the ratings in terms of getting particular angles or segments the highest rated moment of the show just by their placement on the show. If an angle is consistently playing out in high trafficked areas its going to consistently get high numbers.

When you said highest rating I presumed you meant WWE not TNA.

FMKK your hate for TNA really showing lately. very bias posts.

To me it's more showing shock that Dixie Carter can function on a day to day basis more than it is hatred of TNA.

I don't imagine there's a company on earth which could withstand a court-ordered release of their email correspondence without a few gaffes showing up. And the scale of these gaffes is tiny! It's meaningless; a non-story. The idea that some minor tech mix-ups somehow demonstrate Carter is an incompetent, non-functioning person, or business person, is laughable.

I'm a very good web developer of 15 years experience. In those 15 years I once accidentally gave a journalist a senior executive's mobile number. I once deleted an entire production web directory. Accidents happen; sometimes quite serious ones. Somebody getting an email address wrong, or a URL wrong - it's just laughably small-fry!

And the fact anyone has tried to make anything out of it shows the extent to which the internet has it in for Carter, and how warped and biased their view of her, and TNA, actually is.

Poor Dixie again? Maybe she could stop making gaffes and nobody could pull her up on them.

Tyrus has been pulled from GFW's upcoming shows due to contract obligations.

Karen Jarrett tweeted this:

"Sounds like someone is throwing a temper tantrum in Nashville. Oh you can't control the world darlin!"

Apparently in response.

But it's not like anybody ever gives her any credit either, is it? Here's a 50 year old woman who agreed to be powerbombed from the top turnbuckle through a table in an attempt to help her show bump a rating, legitimately breaking her back. Who clearly could be spending her dad's money more selfishly than propping up a failing wrestling company. And what does she get from wrestling fans in return? Nothing but hate.

i should start my own company, everyone else seems to be incompetent.

i would be head to head with WWE within 5 years and based on current creative probably ahead in 7!

I think, even with the best possible writing there's a lot of politics and dirty tricks in wrestling which would make it very hard to challenge WWE at this point. Not to mention talent refusing to work your angles, TV network interference, injuries, the fans taking to angles you didn't expect and rejecting ones you'd banked on etc.

I actually don't think WWE or TNA are that badly written. The problem for WWE is the sheer amount of TV they need to fill every week, budget cuts making shows look formulaic, relentless censorship, and the restricted movesets they impose on talent. Make RAW the only weekly WWE show, cut it to 1.5 hours, allow wrestlers to use their full movesets and give everyone more mic time & freedom to be themselves on the mic, and current RAW could quickly become the best weekly wrestling show ever broadcast. The talent pool is phenomenal.

TNA are hamstrung by lack of money, lack of crowds, poor production values, network interference and relentless hostile media coverage. Even through all that, the second Wembley Impact this year was for me one of the best weekly wrestling TV episodes since the heyday of SNME.

She got praise for taking that powerbomb. Taking a powerbomb doesn't make up for what is happening in the offices. Well done to her for taking a bump but it's not done anything to change the company which is what she should be focused on doing.

In the past 12 months, what in a business sense can she be praised for? She's signed a few international TV deals so good on that account but what else?

To an extent I feel sorry for Dixie Carter.

She's running a business in an industry that she clearly doesn't fully know or understand and with that in mind a lot of the decisions she's made don't look entirely bad (on paper at least). She inherited Russo but keeping him around wasn't in and of itself a terrible idea. He's one of the few people with actual tangible experience in a creative role and as anyone who's got any kind of experience of the words that come out of his mouth he's an expert at spinning his past successes and failures – namely he's responsible for everything that worked and someone else was to blame for everything that didn't. The same basic principle is true of the decision to bring Bischoff and Hogan in. If you don't really know the industry it makes sense that you'd turn to the one guy who had previously taken the fight to Vince McMahon and seen major success with WCW (at least on the surface). And Hulk Hogan is a name and figure those outside of pro-wrestling know the same is broadly true for guys like Flair and Sting etc.

The problem is of course that while all of these decisions seem to make sense in reality they were just horrible decisions and pretty much everyone more familiar and knowledgeable of the industry saw those disasters coming a mile away. Obviously this raises questions about why after so many years she still seems largely unaware of the industry in which she's operating but that's another issue for another time. It also doesn't explain why she stuck with Russo for so long or hired him back, over the objections of the network keeping her company alive, which however you slice it was just bad, bad business.

I think in part she is a victim of the fact that Vince McMahon has made running a wrestling company look easy (in no small part because of his widespread failures outside of the wrestling business that seem to suggest the man isn't exactly businessman of the year either). Pro-wrestling is a weird industry that though that takes a wide degree of knowledge to navigate (which is part of why WCW fell apart so spectacularly despite being so successful for a while).

With that said I think there's very little evidence to suggest that Dixie Carter is a particularly great businesswoman even accounting for wrestling deficiencies. Quite what she's getting out of the continued existence of TNA at this point is hard to tell. Maybe its pride that's keeping her investing her (family) money into the sinking ship who knows. As a company though its poorly run. As in WCW levels of mismanagement which is not an easy bar to clear.

They're both really badly written. There are absolutely other issues that both companies need to address and work through but even considering that the creative output of both TNA and WWE is just bad. What's frustrating about that though is that they aren't forever and always bad. Its not a WCW 2000 situation where its just relentlessly bad with no light at the end of the tunnel. Both WWE and TNA are capable of producing moments of something special and glimmers of hope but they're rarely, if ever, able to make those moments last and often almost immediately manage to undo them or completely ruin them.

I realize this is subjective, but I thought Dixie being tabled was one of the worst things I've ever seen in wrestling, it was just horribly misogynistic, felt like Rhino abusing Sandman's wife in ECW and that was stupid 15 years ago.

How that was supposed to attract any casual viewers I do not know.

She didnt break her back neither did trish back in 2000 because Bubba takes the full force.

the only thing TNA do right is wrestling, the wolves matches vs hardys and dudleys were brilliant and this current series with roode and aries is too(too bad they will do the wrestling unreaistic BS and make sure they win 2 on trot to take it to a decider)

but i just dont really care about the characters, i dont care who wins or loses for most part. fast fwd nearly everything on impact. even the promos take too long.

i was TNA biggest supporter back from 2003-end of russo/bisch/hogan era, its just gone downhil now.

this smashing pumpkin seems to be another basic minded guy working in creative, makes no sense .....so far.

I try to catch TNA every now and then but its not really a promotion ive tried to follow on a week to week basis.

That is what is supposed to happen. But Dixie is not a trained wrestler; Trish Stratus was. Watch the bump again - she misses the table entirely and her upper back takes the brunt of the impact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKzHpRyAsRA

She did actually break her back with that table stunt.

The reason for the powerbomb was very simple. The point was to have the younger members of the roster who were against her onscreen and the ones siding with her onscreen (EC3, Spud) to get noticed more and by teasing Bubba putting her through a table it was a recurring storyline week to week, everyone knew it was going to happen but it was just a case of when, every week Dixie would push and push and manage to escape. The desired outcome would be fans who fell away from the show to tune in to see when she would get put through the table and hopefully see the younger roster perform and like what they see enough to keep watching the show after she finally does go through the table.


I imagine it's the same thing with when WWE brings back The Rock or Brock Lesnar. They are hoping that fans who no longer watch due to it being like a Saturday morning kids show might take a look at a Dolph Ziggler or a Adam Rose and they might think oh....this is ok, i'm here to see The Rock but I might watch the rest of the show or I really enjoyed seeing those guys I've never heard of before I'll maybe watch next week too.. That's all it is. Try to bring back older fans or fans that fell away and expose them to new talent that they haven't seen before or maybe present them in a different way and hope that enough people like it to keep watching every week.



Vince Russo interviewed Billy Corgan this week. I haven't seen it yet, it's on his paid site, I don't even know if Russo is putting it up this week but since they are friends and have been friends since 1999 I'm sure Russo will ask him what he will do creatively at TNA.

Anything different is good. It's 2015. This talking for 20 minutes and wrestling matches for 15 minutes and big stages and video screens and commercials running through matches needs to go. It's in the stone ages. Even the Attitude Era is the stone age. It's just so old and outdated. Wrestling needs to be presented differently in 2015 and the truth of the matter is no one knows how to fix it. No one has the right answer. Not a McMahon. Not a Carter. No one. What they do know however and what we all know is that what is being done just now isn't working. They don't have the same numbers of people paying money to see house shows or TV tapings. The TV ratings aren't as good as they used to be. The interest just isn't there anymore and let's face it. Nothing will change until push comes to shove. Maybe TNA losing their contract with DA is a good thing because they talked about doing the reality stuff on the show and that never amounted to anything. If Dixie is really proud and doesn't want to step down and admit defeat then maybe this is the last chance saloon to actually do something for once and go through with it 100%, sink or swim. WWE will never change unless the TV ratings get so low they need to change or their investors kick up a fuss or USA Network decides that a 2.7 on prime time TV every Monday just isn't good enough. And even then WWE has Triple H and Stephanie lol. Even I'm laughing as I type this. It makes no difference, it's the same thing. Same mind. Same way of doing things. They haven't got a clue what an 18 year old man or a 35 year old man wants to see in 2015. Maybe they do i don't know but I can't see them being any different to Vince.


Sometimes you need to roll the dice. Vince did it in the 80's with the expansion and Wrestlemania. Sink or swim. Bischoff did it with Turner's money and when Bischoff was left alone to his own devices, WCW flourished. McMahon did the same thing with Russo in 1995 and it got him the best ratings not only in WWF history but wrestling history, as soon as Russo left in late 1999, WWF went downhill and still goes downhill to this day. It's never recovered. Nearly a 17 year period that has never recovered and the industry hasn't either. If you ever want wrestling to be popular again then you need to hope someone rolls the dice soon. Someone has to take a chance. The fanbase gets smaller by the day no matter how much profit is made. The question is how bad does it need to get. WWE gets a 2.7 for Raw. How much lower does that rating need to be before someone, either an investor or the USA Network themselves starts to open their mouth? How much money does Dixie Carter need to lose before she starts making some real moves and getting the right people hired who know what they are doing behind the scenes in the office? That's when you'll see big changes in wrestling.

How many times hazy? Seriously, how many times?

If you can make more money from less people, as a business what is wrong with that? In a purely financial sense, what is wrong with that?

The first Wrestling Wednesday ratings are in

ROH:

20:00 - 163,000
23:00 - 110,000
Total - 273,000

TNA:
21:00 - 297,000
00:00 - 72,000
Total - 369,000

TNA did 570,000 on its final Friday but obviously the show has changed night and the replay is now after the ROH replay and aired an hour later than usual.

I think ROH had a good night.

lol tna- spoiler-

I know there's a few women on here that will obviously dismiss this but for anyone wanting to hear Billy Corgan talk. Vince Russo has posted the first part of his interview with him for free on video and audio. This is the video part.

http://www.relmnetwork.com/#!THE-SWE...f2e4994fad372c


And Billy says many things I have said. Wrestling is behind the times. Shows like Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire show sofisticated characters. TV viewers are not stupid. They want to be challenged. They want to be challenged. They want stories they can sink their teeth into.

Not a bad start for RoH. That's a hefty drop for TNA but not unexpected. We'll see where things go from here.


Yes that absolutely explains why The Dudz but an untrained woman through a table...


Only it isn't because the audience has a pre-existing connection to The Rock or Brock Lesnar and therefore when they show up on television its an event that triggers with the audience. Putting a woman the audience doesn't know or care about through a table doesn't trigger that and speaks to the absolute worst of pro-wrestling.


No it isn't. Different and good aren't the same thing. They sometime overlap to be sure but they aren't interchangable. Being different just to be different is not a good thing.


So to be clear wrestling and segments that advance stories are outdated and need to go. What exactly does that leave? I'd also just point out that the Attitude Era didn't reinvent the wheel. Nor did the nWo fueled explosion of WCW. They were effectively doing the same thing that pro-wrestling has always been just with a fresh lick of paint. The idea that you need to reinvent the wheel here is fundamentally flawed. It needs a fresh coat of paint but the wheel still works.


Which might explain why WWE have put a lot of effort, time and money into trying to expand their audience beyond the single demo you're obsessed with.


That's a debatable point and really depends on your perspective. If you use the only metric that Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff seemed to care about (television ratings) then sure WCW flourished for a while but beyond that it gets a bit shaky. I'd also point out that Bischoff left to his own devices also helped bring about the downfall of WCW.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


Since absolutely no one with any knowledge uses the household numbers as a worthwhile metric for success or failure you're barking up the wrong tree here.